Here we go again. The ongoing saga of how in the heck do I get reliable internet service with an air card like the Rogers Rocket Stick. This little device worked great for me in the populated areas of the world. Out on the edges of cell service, not so much. I almost want to move closer to civilization, just to get reliable internet service.
I’ve been pulling out hair since I have all this stuff I wanted to do online, and no way to get on the internet with my laptop. Email piling up, plans going on the back burner, argghh!! And those endless phone calls to Xplornet Satellite internet services so that I can be put on hold for an hour, only for them to explain to me once again how my not having internet service is not their fault.
I do have to say that the Rogers customer service was excellent, friendly, knowledgable, and all around excellent. What a contrast to Xplornet. They even let me try the Rocket Stick with a 30 day no questions asked return policy. Try to find that from Telus or Bell. Not likely Bubba. With the other two companies, you sign the contract and you are in it for the long haul. The 30 day return policy came in pretty handy for me, since I did end up handing it back over to them. It just plain didn’t work at my house. My cell phone works there, but nothing from the air card. It was rather frustrating really.
When I took back the Rocket Stick, I wanted to get a Bell USB air card but no one in Red Deer had them in stock. That was how I ended up getting a Sierra Compass 597 Air Card from Telus instead. My wife did later get an aircard from Bell, which worked great in our rural home, at first. Now it has troubles connecting to her PC laptop. Something to do with the drivers working with the newer 64 bit laptops or some such technobabble. It still works great with my mac.
Tim,
You’ll have to shoot me your good email address since you don’t have Xplornet anymore.
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I belive that the most important part of every product I pay for is customer service. As long as it works it doesn’t matter what you use but once it breaks down you will need good customer service.
Good luck! I hope you find a reliable internet source.
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hey Tim,
Did Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs say man must have beer, coffee, and internet to survive? Or something like that? I don’t know how you’re coping. Good luck to you!
~ Steve, the secretive trade show guru
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Good luck! I hope you find a reliable source.
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Surely there must be some kind of aerial available that would be strong enough to pick up a sufficient internet signal, be it a portable one or a larger fixed aerial for the whole community. Is the internet connection with your Mac a strong one, if it is you should be able to network the pc and mac so that you can get internet access on both machines.
You have to love it when the new computers do not work with the internet providers. I have mutiple computers and even the brand new junk vista that does not work very well with alot of things. Internet access hardly works with it and can not set it up like i like. Printers one out 5 work with it had to download new software to get it to work. So much for making life easier.
Funny how cell works but internet has problems must be like the new HDTV system. They finaly said it will not be as strong as a signal so some places can not get tv over the air unless you use satellite or cable but remote places do not have cable.
your attempt will not going to go in vain…..
your work will produce result…..
Good Luck
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ofc it works great with mac!
64 bit apps mostly have trouble with drivers, especialy vista :S gl with it!
You should try getting an Iridium phone. They use a string of orbiting satellites to transmit and recieve data, so your hidden corner ain’t so hidden to them. Any given time, one of their satellities will have you in it’s range.
Good luck with getting anything done with those guys. Their customer service really does suck.
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thanks for the helpful information
I liked this article. Will be sure to return. And by the way: nice writting style.
This is quite helpful for those looking to use internet in remote areas as well.
Thanks for the useful info.
I liked it so much…Thanks for Sharing…
“Try to find that from Telus or Bell.” Don’t know about telus but bell really sucks. They are way to powerful and need open competition here, down with bell!
i recently heard about the Iridium phone and thought I would give it a try. So, I went out to buy it and was very disappointed because it did not work the way it claims to work. What the problme with me or the phone or the area I tried to work in?
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I am wondering is there any reliable internet source for location far from the cities. In villages where also phone is not available?
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Thank you for information. Is there any a reliable internet source?
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I have been looking for a long time and found this post. Thanks a lot….
I’m wondering for this too. Good luck dude…
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thanks.love it so much.so fast!
I think there must be a instruction manual provided with the product, hope you must read it first.
Orelse call the customer care and get the problem solved.
I have had years of experience with Xplornet. I even did all the work to wire my local town with the tower, high-speed fiber, everything.
Xplornet has the most horrific service – always ending with “it’s not our fault” and never a site visit or improvement.
3 examples:
1. I was cut out from all commissions promised for doing 99% of the work to bring them to this region. I was even threatened if I were to ever complain. I was demanded under threat coercion duress to remove all trace of my existence on the internet so they could operate without accountability.
2. pre-sale contract: no ports would be blocked for their most expensive service, years later, they are still blocking ports
3. pre-sale contract: no bandwidth throttling, unlimited in every way, years later, can’t even run low-bandwidth voip phones reliably, much less high bandwidth applications. Can’t reliably and consistently complete internet work. Speed tests often fail to even *complete* indicating *zero* speeds available – in their highest paid program.
I am in the same boat, no high speed in my area only 28k dial-up. I am thinking about Rogers Rocket stick. May give it at shot for a free trial. As far as xplornet goes, my friends had it thought it was pretty good until one day a crew showed up and removed all the equipment saying the service was no longer going to be available in our area. Don’t know what happened but I think as micheal said they tried the same thing with a guy in the area and he dropped them. Have not heard too many good things about xplornet. I wonder how long they can last pissing off customers before it bites them in the ass.
I guess my biggest problem with the whole thing is why do I have to pay a couple hundred bucks on equipment to get internet, plus fifty or so per month after?? My wife has gone back to University and I don’t need the extra $$$ going out, I don’t mind 50 per month but 300 install and not sure how it works is a little scary. I sure hope the Rocket Stick works for me.
Good luck for finding a better internet provider, and thanks for sharing this information.
I would have to agree here, its all about service and I have noticed more and more the lack of service delivery.
I have just found this site and look forward to paging though the content.
After reading some reviews and this article, it seems Bell USB air card is the best choice. Let see if I could find it around my area. Thanks.
It can be hard to find a good ISP, that’s for sure.
It’s getting really tiresome being dropped in the middle of a long email message. And I am not a skilled typist. But when I get the non-deliverable due to the other sever’s refusal, deal, I get really annoyed. It can’t always be the other server’s fault. Can it? I’m also getting a lot of ‘web site not available’. Please see if you can fix these things, PLEASE.
Ed Balaisis
Huntsville, Ont.
I would have to agree here, its all about service and I have noticed more and more the lack of service delivery.
I have just found this site and look forward to paging though the content.
It sounds like a real pain in the you know what. Have you searched online for any kind of signal booster or hardware device that may be compatible with your Rogers Rocket Stick? I know of a gentleman up in Canada that had a similar problem, it turn out to be the unit. He had it replaced and had no problems after that.
I use Sierra AirCard 881 since 6 months ago. It’s good for me.
This is a very nice article. Hope i can find a phone and an internet provider that will definitely provide my needs as an online worker.
I’ve been using Rogers rocket stick for about six months. Initially, I kept getting ‘dropped’ on a regular basis. Finally, I figured out how to uninstal the Connection Manager and then reinstal it. Voila! The stupid thing doesn’t drop me anymore since it knows that I know how to beat it.
Pretty nice work.. Is it ok if I link back to this blog from my site? Pls let me know..
It’s a tough one, but I’m putting it down to technology. Once the hardware and software used is a bit more up to scratch you can expect a better data service.
This is rapidly becoming one of my favourite blog sites, keep up the good work! As for the air card – I’m not really sure about these. A friend of mine lives far away from the city and has to use one and he tries to explain to me how it works. He did seem to have a similar problem to you though, which I guess is expected. In general he said it worked fine but where it was really supposed to be one of the best on the market, it failed miserably.
Its quite amazing how we quickly come to rely so heavily on the internet. A couple of months ago I had a internet access problem and couldnt use it for two weeks. It was awful, for one thing the kids couldnt do their homework on-line, which is what most teachers expect now. Turned out my router was faulty. Which I what I told them at the beginning, but they know best apparently.
I’ve tried the Bell aircard and it was decent at first but after a couple of weeks, stopped working. It would turn the internet on and off and then eventually refused to respond when I plugged it into my PC. Not too impressed.
Service is no in my book.If somthing fails to work but is fixed quickly then that is a major plus point. Look at Orange cs for the worst ever service
Pete Asgard Metal Sheds
I’m in love with KeywordLuv, every blog should have it! It feels good to leave your mark!
If you have good service then customers will surely thrive on your product.
I find that air cards just don’t work for me. I’ve tried a few different ones and I think I’m just destined to not have any. None of them have worked for me, one of them just broke as soon as I started to use it. I stay away now, clearly I’m cursed.
Gave my brother a Bell card and he loves it! He lives in an area where internet connection is shaky at best but he says he’s never had much of a problem with it. I don’t know about Telus, I read on Amazon that they were unreliable so I steered pretty clear.
IT sounds like you’re going to either have to install your own tower or pray for a miracle. I have the same problem at my mom’s house- no cell service and very PMSing internet service.